About Ghosts and Claims
Some people appear in NUU before they have an account. Attribution still needs a public profile. A ghost is that public profile. A claim is how the real person takes it.
Why ghosts exist
Other NUU products name people on records. Not every named person has signed in. Some people never will. The product still needs a stable person to point at.
A ghost fills that gap. It is a public profile with no account behind it. Visitors can open it. Other products can store its permanent identity. Managers can keep the record up to date until an owner arrives.
A live ghost is easy to see. The public page marks it as a ghost. It does not show a handle. If managers exist, the page can list them.
What a claim does
A claim is a request. You say, this ghost is me. You can send a claim only if you do not already have a public profile. You can send a claim only for a live ghost. You can have one pending claim per ghost.
You can cancel a pending claim. An admin reviews each pending claim. The admin can approve it or reject it.
If the admin approves the claim:
- Your account points at the ghost. The ghost becomes your public profile.
- Empty fields on your account fill from the ghost.
- Your account username becomes the handle when it is free. If your account has no username, the ghost handle can stay.
- Managers of that ghost lose edit access. An owner now exists.
- Groups and group memberships on any old public profile move to the claimed profile.
- Other pending claims on that ghost are rejected.
If you already created a public profile from scratch, you cannot claim a ghost. A claim would replace the profile you have, and that path is closed.
Why an admin reviews the claim
A ghost can already have history. Other products may already name it. A wrong claim would attach that history to the wrong person.
An admin checks that the requester is the named person. You wait until that review finishes. You land on your public profile when the admin approves the claim.
After a claim
The public profile is then ordinary. It no longer shows as a ghost. You edit it as the owner. Other products that already stored its permanent identity now show your current display name, handle, and avatar.
For the steps, follow Claim a Ghost Profile. For how other products use the result, see About Attribution.